Monday, May 25, 2009

Can We Trust the Gospels? 2

Did the evangelists know Jesus personally?

That’s a question people often ask of the Gospels, even though a modern biography written by the subject’s friends is generally viewed as at least a little bit suspect.

Of course, the flip side is that, especially in the ancient world, the farther you stray from the subject the more likely you are to encounter legendary material. So perhaps it’s best that the canonical Gospels are supposed to be written by either Christ’s disciples or theirs.

But are they?

Roberts addresses this question in Chapter 3 of Can We Trust the Gospels? by looking at both the internal and external evidence, though he admits there is scant internal data.

For the external evidence he points to three ancient works:

Papias, writing about 125AD, specifically identifies Mark as not knowing the Lord but as transmitting Peter’s teaching. He also describes this as an established tradition he received from an elder. The reference to Matthew isn’t clear, though I think it’s implicit that Papias accepted it as apostolic when combined with other things Eusebius quoted.

The Muratorian Canon, written about 170AD, describes Luke as not knowing the Lord and John as a disciple of Jesus.

Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, written about 180AD, identifies all the Gospel authors, specifying that Mark and Luke were not original disciples and that Matthew and John were.

A brief aside regarding Irenaeus: His work gets a little weird, by modern standards, in one section; he goes into great detail about why it is fitting that there are exactly four Gospels, and some of it seems a bit out-there. This doesn’t affect his ability to know who wrote the Gospels. It’s simply his rather unusual case against the Gnostic versions.

Another aside: It’s interesting that both Papias and Irenaeus say Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and most scholars are convinced the Gospel bearing that name was first written in Greek. Ben Witherington has floated the notion, based on Papais’ wording and other things, that what we’ve taken to calling “Q” may actually be the work they’re referring to. If it was combined with Mark by an editor, Witherington says, the new Gospel would have taken on the name of its most notable source – Matthew. It’s an interesting idea; we’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of it.

Back to the topic at hand, is this the best we have? The quote from Papias is easily 50 years after the Gospel of Mark was likely written. Why should we believe these guys? Roberts offers a few reasons to think they’re right.

First, 2nd century Christians wouldn’t make up Mark or Luke. The Gnostics were attributing their Gospels to Peter, James, and other apostles. If they were going to get creative about the authors of the canonical Gospels, they wouldn’t have chosen those who never met Jesus. And as Craig Blomberg points out in The Case for Christ, Matthew would probably be the last apostle anyone would pick too.

Roberts also says, “the anonymity of the biblical Gospels bears the stamp of truth whereas the pseudonymity of the noncanonical Gospels suggests their falsehood” (emphasis in original, p49). That their enemies were disseminating Gospels with famous names on crazy teachings lends credibility to the traditions that were passed along in the anonymous Gospels.

Second, “the fact that the second Gospel was so quickly accepted by the early church (including the other evangelists) lends credence to the notion that it was based on reliable source(s), like Peter, as Papias claimed” (p49).

Third, he also notes that “in recent years many have come to believe that the first and fourth gospels reflect the memory and the perspective of Jesus’ own disciples” even if they weren't the actual scribes (p49).

I would add an observation I read elsewhere: Just because the Gospels are anonymous, that doesn’t mean no one knows who wrote them. They were written to specific communities, and they would certainly have known who they came from and passed that on.

We can sum up the case this way: Despite the temptation to combat Gnostic Gospels with apostolic names, the early church openly acknowledged that two Gospels were written by non-apostles, supporting the authorship of Luke and Mark and the honesty of the early church (p50).

And even though we can be reasonably confident that the authors of the canonical Gospels are who tradition says, Roberts tells us “the reliability of the New Testament Gospels does not depend on who wrote them so much as on the nature and purpose of the writings themselves” (p49).

I want to end with this thought:
“Why … would a scholar in the twenty-first century doubt the traditions that go back into the second century? Doesn’t it make sense to think that those early traditions were based on actual testimony? Wouldn’t you suppose that those who passed on the Gospels also passed along information about who actually wrote them? All of this seems quite reasonable, unless you approach the tradition with a hermeneutic of suspicion, in which the claims made by church leaders are presumed to be ‘guilty until proven innocent’” (p48).

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The blog form of the book: Are the NT Gospels Reliable?

Previous installments:
Can We Trust the Gospels? 0
Can We Trust the Gospels? 1

4 comments:

Nancy said...

Your last thought sounds like a case of "mankind"... Unshakable faith will always be countered by the hermeneutic of suspicion....until the "Truth" shows up...

Vinny said...

If they were going to get creative about the authors of the canonical Gospels, they wouldn’t have chosen those who never met Jesus.How about if the gospel indicated that it hadn’t been written by an eyewitness? Given the prologue in the gospel of Luke, wouldn’t the early church have looked pretty silly if it had tried to attribute it to someone who knew Jesus?

And as Craig Blomberg points out in The Case for Christ, Matthew would probably be the last apostle anyone would pick too.How about Judas?

Roberts also says, “the anonymity of the biblical Gospels bears the stamp of truth whereas the pseudonymity of the noncanonical Gospels suggests their falsehood.”This sounds like “Heads I win. Tails you lose.”

I would add an observation I read elsewhere: Just because the Gospels are anonymous, that doesn’t mean no one knows who wrote them. They were written to specific communities, and they would certainly have known who they came from and passed that on.Isn’t this just conjecture? The first gospel may simply have been the product of a literate elder who wished to compile a coherent narrative of Jesus’ life from the stories that were part of the oral tradition within his community. The gospel wouldn’t have been viewed as “coming from” the particular person who wrote the stories down. It came from those who first brought it to the community. Even if the writer’s identity was remembered within the community, it might have not had any significance in other communities where the writings circulated.

It seems to me that your argument assumes the truth of its conclusion. If the gospels were written by the individuals to whom Irenaeous attributed them, then it is likely that the communities for whom they were originally written would have known this and passed the information along when the manuscripts were copied. However, since this hypothesis depends on the identity of the authors, it cannot be used to prove the identity of the authors.

We can sum up the case this way: Despite the temptation to combat Gnostic Gospels with apostolic names, the early church openly acknowledged that two Gospels were written by non-apostles, supporting the authorship of Luke and Mark and the honesty of the early church.As I pointed out above, the early church would not have been tempted to attribute the gospel of Luke to an apostle. Another thing that bothers me about this argument is that it assumes that Irenaeous wouldn’t have been smart enough to figure out that attributing the gospels to lesser figures made the claim more believable. After all, the only way to one-up the heretics who were claiming Peter as the author of their gospel would be to claim Jesus himself as the author of an orthodox gospel.

In any case, I don’t think that Irenaeous simply pulled the names out of thin air. I assume that there were known authorship traditions associated with the gospels in 180 A.D. The question is whether there was any actual evidence behind those traditions. I can’t help but think that Irenaeous wouldn’t have resorted to the "weird" arguments if he had any solid reasons for believing in the superior apostolic pedigree of that the canonical gospels.

As far as Roberts’ last observation goes, does he reject a “hermeneutic of suspicion” when it comes to the Gospel of Peter and other apocryphal works?

Nancy said...

"And even though we can be reasonably confident that the authors of the canonical Gospels are who tradition says, Roberts tells us “the reliability of the New Testament Gospels does not depend on who wrote them so much as on the nature and purpose of the writings themselves” (p49)."

Nature: Testimony dictated by the Holy Spirit of God...kept perfect in spirit by the selfsame Holy Spirit throughout the ages and forever...

Purpose: To testify of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, who upon assention, asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to be with us (the Church) forever. This selfsame Holy Spirit gives us confidence through faith to believe His testimony...both physically written and in our hearts. This confidence is truly built on faith, not head knowledge, that the Word of God is eternal and NEVER fails!

ChrisB said...

Somehow I completely missed that this post had comments. Sorry.

"How about if the gospel indicated that it hadn’t been written by an eyewitness?"

So, you're saying this early community of extremely creative and utterly dishonest Christians couldn't drop one short, problematic passage?

"Even if the writer’s identity was remembered within the community, it might have not had any significance in other communities where the writings circulated."

So, if I'm right, they did it, if you're right, they didn't. Do we both assume our conclusions?

But I don't think it requires so much special effort to know who wrote a document. Especially one that was obviously popular.

"How about Judas?"

I admit to being surprised when I first learned of a Gospel of Judas, but once I read it, it made sense. The Gnostics believed matter was bad. This particular branch saw Judas as a hero for freeing Jesus from a physical body. For them, Judas made perfect sense.

"I can’t help but think that Irenaeous wouldn’t have resorted to the "weird" arguments if he had any solid reasons for believing in the superior apostolic pedigree of that the canonical gospels."

The "weird" wasn't about the authors only that it is "fit" that there are four Gospels.

In all of this, we should remember Roberts' assertion that the identities of the authors really don't matter.